Videos and Animations

In the past five decades more than 50,000 dams have been built on rivers worldwide. Changing conditions in watershed hydrology, contaminants, precipitation, snowpack volume, and other factors will alter the hydrology, biology, and chemistry of regulated river corridors. How will these changes be predicted? To inform a new generation of models, researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are conducting an ongoing experiment along a 60-by-15 meter stretch of the Columbia River in southeastern Washington state. Donning wetsuits and working bundled up along the shoreline, they deployed thousands of meters of wires, sampling tubes, and sensors to help them predict hydrobiogeochemical function under future environmental conditions.

Hear from SFA co-PI James Stegen about the impacts of hydrologic exchange flows on water quality and greenhouse gas emissions as you watch activities at the SFA's Columbia River field site. For more information, see Stegen et al., Nature Communications, 2016 (DOI: 10.1038/NCOMMS11237.)

An imaging technology that enables researchers—for the first time—to take four-dimensional views of the subsurface was selected as a 2016 R&D 100 Award winner. Known as E4D-RT: Real-time Four-Dimensional Subsurface Imaging, the technology combines geology, physics, mathematics and chemistry with supercomputer modeling to create four-dimensional images of what's happening below the surface. The tool is being used in the SFA to dynamically image river water intrusion into the surficial aquifer. Listen as SFA researcher Tim Johnson explains.

Watch an animation of simulated fluid flow through a three-dimensional wavy-walled tube. SFA researchers used this as an analog for porous media (with pore bodies and throats) to understand the impacts of unsteady flow features on solute dispersion. For more information, see Richmond et al., Adv. Water Resour., 2013, DOI: 10.1016/j.advwatres.2013.06.014

View an animation of geophysical observations of river water intrusion into the surficial aquifer at the Hanford Site 300 Area. The animation is based on Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT). The intrusion is driven by variations in river stage, and can be observed by ERT because of differences in electrical conductivity between groundwater and river water. The contours on the animation represent variations in electrical conductivity (specific conductivity or SpC). The inset in the upper right corner shows the variations in river stage (surface elevation) during the observational period.